The recognition came from the All In Campus Democracy Challenge. This is a national, nonpartisan initiative focused on students engaging with democracy.
Civic engagement is about wanting to make a difference in quality of life for yourself and the community, mainly through civic activity, said Dr. Sandra Rodriguez, director for the Center for Student Engagement at UNR . KUNR spoke to Rodriguez before the national recognition was announced.
“I think a lot of people feel that the cycle is you register to vote and you vote. We believe the cycle is you register to vote, you educate yourself on ballot questions, on candidates, you vote and then the final step is you hold elected officials accountable. That's the full democratic cycle, right? And it's something that doesn't end,” she said.
There have been multiple steps in understanding student civic engagement across campus, Rodriguez said. One of those steps was a campus-wide survey on civic engagement. This survey was overseen by Rodriguez and Dr. Jennifer Lowman, the director of Student Persistence Research at UNR. It was conducted in the spring of 2024 to assess the previous academic year and was funded by the associated students of the University of Nevada.
Roughly 3,900 students responded to the survey, with a 22% response rate. It should be noted that this survey was on a variety of civic engagement topics, including volunteering, scholarships and philanthropy.
For undergraduate students, the survey found that civic discussions were up in all categories since the last survey in 2022: up 30% with peers, 20% with family members and 6 percent with strangers. Additionally, the top issues for responding students were mental health, healthcare, abortion and climate change.
“We believe it's our role to challenge systems that prevent any students' full participation in university life, and then past that, our focus is civic learning and democratic engagement, and how those principles are really inextricably linked to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility,” she said.
KUNR caught up with Rodriguez after the recognition was announced. A large part of getting students engaged with voting is educating them on the democratic cycle, Rodriguez said. This means removing barriers to voting. Her team started to get the word out about general election voting this past summer.
“Imagine being 18 and it's the first time you vote, and for them to be able to walk up, one, into their own student union; two, to walk in and see familiar faces already there, all of a sudden it's like, ‘I can do this.’ You walk in and you've got the same folks you've been seeing since last June, ready to say, ‘We're here to help you,’” she said.
Rodriguez’s team took these steps to assure students that civic engagement is ”one of the values of the Wolf Pack,” Rodriguez said. On election day, some of Rodriguez’s staff took vacation days to work the polls at the Joe Crowley Student Union on campus. Two of those staff members were Luis Aguilar-Herrera and Amy Koeckes.
They both completed training outside of their regular working hours to be able to do this, Aguilar-Herrera said. Aguilar-Herrera is the associate director of student government. He greeted students and voters as they came into the polling center on election day.
“It was also very exciting because we registered the students. They came in, we went after them, either at orientation or just out on the walkways. So, it was really full circle for me and it was very beautiful to see that our democracy is alive and that our students want to be involved,” he said.
He saw many first-time voters and is passionate about this work, he said.
“My heritage is from Mexico and I see the struggle that exists to get a fair election. So, what are the ramifications if elections aren’t fair, if people are not informed, people aren’t prepared to vote? I see that and I want to be a part of a solution, so I don’t see myself not being involved,” he said.
While Aguilar-Herrera greeted voters, Koeckes checked them in. Koeckes is the senior associate director for the department. Part of the university’s efforts to remove barriers to voting in this election was by helping students complete same-day registration through proof-of-residence with the dorm rooms, she said.
“We worked with residential life and housing and the voter registrar’s office and they got a piece of the lease inside their online system. And then that is something that was used at same-day registration,” she said.
Students were also able to register beforehand at the Center for Student Engagement office, she said.
“So, then there were five of us staff members that could jump up and help that person get registered. So, even though [the Registrar of Voters office is] just pretty close to campus, it was still a barrier that maybe people couldn't get to it transportation-wise, but they could come here. Because that's the first step: registering, then the education part and then being able to vote here on campus was also this other piece that students could do early vote or day of. So, I think all of those components helped this year for this election,” she said.
Koeckes saw many students who utilized same-day registration, she said. She speculated that this could have contributed to longer wait times at UNR. On election day, the Washoe County deputy registrar reported a 3-hour wait time at the campus polls.
“I will tell you, everybody was so positive and excited when they still showed up in front of me and I said, ‘How long have you waited?’ And they said, ‘Oh, two hours.’ And I said, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m so glad you’re still here. We’ll get you through the process. We’ll get you to vote,’” Koeckes said.
Other departments on campus helped on election day too, including those from the E. L. Wiegand Fitness Center and the First Generation Center on campus, Rodriguez said.
“All of that then falls back on us, because it’s an educational process and when I say us, I mean the university as a whole,” Rodriguez said.
Now, Rodriguez and her team are focusing on helping students continue to stay engaged with that democratic process.
“When you have the combined energy of college students, it's always about moving forward, whether or not the outcome was what the students wanted. Our goal is that they still remain excited and committed to the democratic process at the end of the day,” she said.
KUNR’s Ember Braun is a student at the Reynolds School of Journalism.
